Subscribe

Customer Help

General Director David Gockley’s final season features some of his favorites: Verdi’s Don Carlo, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Janáček’s Jenůfa and a new production of Carmen. Secure your seats and subscribe today!

San Francisco Opera invites you and your family to attend FREE screenings of our Opera-in-an-Hour Movies presented throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. To learn about where you can catch a screening of our family friendly operas, click here.

On July 5, 26,000 opera fans gathered at AT&T Park to watch our eighth live simulcast: La Traviata. While tweeting during performances is discouraged in the Opera House, at the Ballpark, anything goes.

It was cold in New York in February, 2008 when I flew into LaGuardia airport, but not too cold. After years of living in Lexington, KY, where I raised a son and worked on a Master’s in Vocal performance at the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre, I always flew into the busiest airport of my hometown for opera auditions with the romantic head of a twenty-something professional virgin from the midwest—this, when I was anything but.

American soprano Heidi Stober makes her role debut as the innocent, but resilient Magnolia Hawks in Show Boat. Heidi made her San Francisco Opera debut in the 2010-11 Season as Sophie in Werther and has since returned as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Atalanta in Xerxes, Pamina in The Magic Flute and Nannetta in Falstaff. Currently a principal artist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Heidi took time out of her busy performance schedule to answer our five questions. Take a look and be sure to catch her thrilling performance in Show Boat at San Francisco Opera this summer.

Tomorrow evening our phenomenally talented Adler Fellows will perform in their annual The Future is Now: Adler Gala Concert. Founded in 1977 as the San Francisco Affiliate Artists-Opera Program, Adler Fellowships are performance-oriented residencies for the most advanced young singers and coach/accompanists. Under the guidance of San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley and Opera Center Director Sheri Greenawald, the Adler Fellowship Program offers intensive individual training and roles of increasing importance in San Francisco Opera's main-stage season.

As the year draws to a close for our Adlers, we want to take a moment to highlight some of their key roles in 2013. The Adler Fellows truly are the rising stars of opera, and you can say “You saw them here first!”

On Saturday, November 9, we hosted our 2nd free Community Open House, featuring fun events and activities for all ages. It's such a joy to open the doors of the beautiful War Memorial Opera House to droves of people who may have never even been inside before. The 2013 Open House included many diverse presentations and opportunities to connect with opera in new ways, including onstage musical demonstrations; sing-alongs with the San Francisco Opera Chorus and San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows; stage combat workshops; costume, wig and makeup demonstrations; a costume photo booth; an opportunity to meet San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley; and family activities throughout the opera house lobbies including a scavenger hunt, prop-making, costume crafts, and more, with workshops designed for both adults and families.

Introduction

Backstage at San Francisco Opera is a fascinating, fast-moving, mysterious and sacred space for the Company’s singers, musicians, dancers, technicians and production crews. Musical and staging rehearsals are on-going, scenery is loaded in and taken out, lighting cues are set, costumes and wigs are moved around and everything is made ready to receive the audience. From the principal singers, chorus and orchestra musicians to the creative teams for each opera, in addition to the many talented folks who don’t take a bow on stage, this blog offers unique insight, both thought-provoking and light-hearted, into the life backstage at San Francisco Opera.